A hard to fathom
revenge of the outcasts fantasy drama. It tells
about a pet mutt lost in Budapest, Hungary, who is
abused in the streets. It's filmed from the POV of
the dog. The schematic social conscience flick
rails against dog abuse by humans. Hungarian
filmmaker Kornél Mundruczó("Delta"/"Johanna"/"Pleasant
Days") stylishly directs this visually innovative
original film and co-writes with Viktória
Petrányi and Kata Weber. It won
the Un Certain Regard Prize at the 2014 Cannes
Festival.

The
13-year-old tomboy Lili (Zsofia
Psotta) is unhappy her divorced mom leaves
without her slaughterhouse food inspector father,
Daniel (Sandor Zsoter),
an uptight former professor, while she goes on a
three-month summer trip to Australia. Dad has no love
for her mutt Hagen and after a dispute about bringing
the dog to a shelter and his refusal to pay a tax to
keep the dog, the dog is abandoned by the irritable
dad on the roadside. The dog goes on an incredible
journey, whereby after escaping from animal control
officers rounding up strays in the street, Hagen is
snatched by a needy person who sells the mutt to
someone involved in the dog fight racket. He cruelly
trains Hagen to be a killer dog.

The
pic settles in as an allegory about the need for both
a little girl and her dog to be loved, as it runs by
us their parallel stories. It has Hagen break out of
the town's biggest animal shelter with about 200 dogs
following. The money shot has Lili, her school's
concert trombone player, on a bicycle with all the
dogs bent on revenge on the humans who mistreated
them, following her.

The
pic by its title pays homage to Sam Fuller's White Dog
and by its suddenly frightful attack of the dogs in
unison reminds one of Hitchcock's The Birds.